Publications

Eight letters from the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith addressed to young Bahá’ís passing through their adolescent years, trying to discover their talents and potential. To the challenge of questions such as ‘Where am I going in life?’ ‘Who am I?’, Shoghi Effendi answers boldly and in a straightforward way. He encourages the junior youth to commit themselves to the service of Bahá’u’lláh and to let their direction be dictated by the needs of the Faith, by the desire to do ‘great, great deeds’, and by the knowledge that their generation must provide the ‘saints, heroes, martyrs and administrators of future years’.

Ethel Jenner Rosenberg: The Life and Times of England’s Outstanding Bahá’í Pioneer WorkerGeorge Ronald. ISBN: 978-0-85398-399-6

Who was Ethel Jenner Rosenberg? A Victorian spinster. A painter of miniatures and portraits. The first Englishwoman in her native country to accept Bahá’u’lláh as the Manifestation of God for this day.
Ethel Rosenberg heard of the Bahá’í movement in the final months of the nineteenth century and shortly afterwards became a Bahá’í. From that moment she dedicated herself to the promotion of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and to the service of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
Using Ethel Rosenberg’s own diaries and letters, minutes and notes from the meetings of the first Bahá’í institutions in Britain, and other original documents, Robert Weinberg explores the life of this fascinating woman, described by Shoghi Effendi as ‘England’s outstanding Bahá’í pioneer worker’.

The life of Bernard Leach, like the marvellous pots he created, revolved around a centre – a singular point around which all of his artistic achievements found their form and from which his deep humanity grew. From his earliest years in Japan he identified the centre of life as ‘Spiritual Energy (God)’. Later he realized that the key to a harmonious and peaceful future for individuals and society was the ‘replacement of self at the centre of the circle by “The Other Power” – God’.
The act of throwing the clay is, for Leach, a metaphor for the unique soul, centred in God, allowing itself to become malleable so that God’s will may use it as a vehicle through which to operate. Bernard Leach found the answers he sought in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith.
This commemorative volume was published to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Bernard Leach in 1979. It is an anthology of his own testimonies – about pottery and life, philosophy, and his lifelong desire to see, and assist, East and West embrace.

This timely book shows how sacred scripture has always used nature to teach us about our spiritual obligations: to our Creator; to each other; to the world around us. A selection of extracts from the diverse range of humanity’s spiritual heritage-from Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and the Bahá’í Faith-shows how contemplation of these eternal truths, combined with that subtle sense of communion with the natural world, can help us find our point of balance.

An Opera Miscellany: Everything you never knew about opera for buffs and bluffersCyan. ISBN: 978-1905736287

You might know Bellini from Puccini, Bizet from Britten, even Shaposhnikov from Shostakovich but can you name the ten opera plots in which a goat features heavily? Opera buffs as well as fans of the Muppet opera (Pigoletto, of course) will be entertained (and possibly educated) by this varied and engaging compendium of facts, figures, trivia, statistics, stories and quotations from the colourful world of opera. This is a miscellany of the madness, with operatic proportions of wit and wisdom (includes Puccini’s recipe for cooking beans, and Rossini’s tips on recycling), the valuable knowledge contained in this little book will confound, delight and amaze even the most hardened Glydebourne-goer.

The soundtrack to a film is just as important to its success as its pictures, and the best films have great music chosen, or specially written for them. Not only have many classical masterpieces become more famous and better loved as a result of their use in films, but many pieces of film music have become classics in their own right.
The Classic FM Friendly Guide to Film Music gives a friendly, jargon-free overview of film music, from the early days of the music that accompanied the “silent” movies through to the bright young composers of today. It contains descriptions, analyses, lists, trivia, quotes and easy-to-use timelines to create a picture of the development of a century of film music. The book is accompanied by a CD of 20 essential movie tracks – 10 written especially for the cinema and 10 popular classics that have been used in films.